


You Ain't Goin' Home in Bodybags

by ialpiriel



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, Gen, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1504235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard was the only one who made it off Akuze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Ain't Goin' Home in Bodybags

**Author's Note:**

> idk man i wanted to write about sole survivor shepard since thats MY shepard, and i see a lot of longfic with a bunch of backgrounds that arent mine

They have been on Akuze for three days, and they have not found a single human being.

They have found the remains of civilization - a half dozen villages scattered across thirty miles, without fields even tilled. There is a single pallet of rations open at each one - whatever struck, struck within a week of their landing. The guys over in tent three have started telling scary stories, purely earth-based in their origins (the greenhorns, haven’t even heard the one about Palavenian rot) and while the desolation and the horror stories have put everyone on edge, no one’s done anything past those. Everyone hopes no one does - it’s bad enough being on a desolate planet, with stories of zombified protheans out for revenge and covered in impenetrable armor, of packs of varren overrunning camps in the night, or ghosts that haunt wastelands and claw out soldiers’ eyes being passed around. No one is stupid enough to don a badly-made costume around four dozen people who are very good with guns.

It is the middle of the fourth day when Gallagher spots the body, ten miles from the nearest settlement. It’s got acid burns all over it, and, as the saying goes, they may be marines, but at least they aren’t civilians. One of the techs sends in a bot that takes a scan. Results come back as fluroantimonic acid, and no one touches the body after that. They shovel dirt over the corpse from a shovel-length away, and roll a big rock off a nearby hill to mark the grave. They give the body the best burial they can, under the circumstances, and retreat back to the hills to set up camp for the night.

Second dog watch is halfway through their shift when they feel the ground shake; once, twice, three times, getting worse each time. It’s Shepard who makes the rounds to the officers’ tents, waking them with exhortations of “Something’s not right out there, sir, we oughta suit up.” The officers begin to wake the rest of the camp - Shepard is sharp, and she doesn’t call for help unless it’s warranted, so chances were -

There is no time.

There are legs - like bugs, but scaled up a million times, feet the size of a man’s head, far bigger than any bug should be.

There is the tongue, neon blue and coated in acid, whipping through tents and flattening them and sending men and women flying.

There are the claws - are they really “claws” when they're as long as a two-story house is tall? - and if you can’t dodge a claw, or a leg, or a tongue -

Then you probably can’t dodge the sprays of acid.

Twenty-three soldiers - twelve men, eleven women; Shepard and Bahandi and Gallagher and Andreason and Sanqui and Wong and Tse and Yellowknife and Yamasaki and a dozen others - make it to the Makos parked close by. Three of the nine tanks are already decaying, drenched in acid and melting and probably run over by one of the monsters, and the soldiers take the other six how they can - four to a tank, except for the last, where Bahandi and her two companions make the company. They make it a half mile out before the front three tanks disappear below the hard-packed sand in a swish and a growl and a long silent pause.

"Make peace with your gods," Gallagher whispers over the comm, his voice breaking and tears streaming down his face. "I don’t think we’re gonna make it out tonight."

"Pull your shit together, Gallagher," Shepard barks from the front Mako. "We will make it out alive. Make it to the hills up there. That was a Thresher Maw, they like open spaces. The less open space we give, the safer we’ll be."

"But they-"

"That was an order, soldier. All our officers were dead in their tents or in their tanks. Until we get this shit sorted, I’m assuming command. Sanqui, radio back up to the ship. Tell them it’s a Thresher, and that we love our families, and we will try to escape. Relay names of those you’ve still got life readings on. When we get up into the hills, I want all of you into one tank. The less noise we make, the less they’ll have to chase. I’ll take a Mako and see if I can hold it off. Better you ten survive than all eleven of us die."

"Shepard, you can’t-"

"That’s an order soldier. Pull over. I can’t see it following us anymore. Let’s switch now, I don’t think we lost it, but maybe you guys still can."

Shepard pulls the tank over so the other two tanks can park parallel. All seven other soldiers pile out, and make a run for her tank, where she has swung the door open and is offering a hand up to anyone who needs one. When they are all in - no shaking earth, not a peep from the Thresher Maw - she jumps out onto the sand. She smiles up at them.

"Get your sorry asses out of here. I’ll hold the damn thing off as long as I can." She laughs, the sound of a woman resigned to death (but at least it’s an honorable one; one for the history books). "You’re all gonna go home, and it ain’t gonna be in a body bag." She jumps up to pull the door down, and the soldiers - crowded together, nearly twice the number of them in the Mako than were officially allowed to fit - watch her as she runs for the Mako on the outside of the line. She swings up into it - doesn’t even bother to close the door - and spins around, out into the open space.

The other Mako starts up the hill.

The hill explodes.

Shepard is halfway across the waste, hands white-knuckled around the steering wheel, when she glances behind, and sees only one Mako and one determined Thresher Maw.

She is glad for armor, for what little good armor could do against a Maw.

+++

"Three months ago, a Thresher Maw attacked a platoon of soldiers on Akuze, just as the sun set. As we reported then, only one soldier made it out alive. She has been in the hospital since then, with severe acid burns, a broken leg and arm, and severe psychological trauma. Alliance authorities have stated that she has been released today, and has been recruited into the prestigious N7 program. They have not released her name, but one of our sources says that she joined the Alliance on her eighteenth birthday, and has had an exemplary service record since then. We wish her the best of luck in any future endeavors, and hope that, whatever happens, the woman who first killed a Thresher Maw on foot will always come home safely."


End file.
